Well everyone, I'm sorry to say science does not always work the way we want it to. As such this mini epic of mine has no foreseeable end in the near future.
The last time I posted I mentioned a headache I'd had Tuesday. The headache got worse Wednesday and hadn't gone away today so I didn't go to work on either day. I went to the doctor's earlier today where the doctor speculated I have strep throat (no my throat doesn't hurt at all) so I can't go in tomorrow either.
The problem is tomorrow is supposed to have been my last day. I definetely haven't finished the required amount of time for my project but that's not a problem because I can easily convince people I spent 40 hours doing what I did (especially at my school where no one knows what I'm talking about anyway). What irks me is how I might finish this project not knowing what's with my quasar! So next week I have to go to school but I think after school I'll head down to Pitt and work on my project. It should be doable.
So that's what's up with my project. Sorry this installment isn't so exciting but I figured it wouldn't be nice to leave my audience hanging.

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Yes, I have a life. It's quite different from yours.

I haven't slept in two days. Now I can.

Hope you feel better.

Now that I've stopped lurking, I can post here and say Wow! It's so cool you've gotten to do some great research! I used to work on quasar absorption lines as an undergrad (now I'm in interacting galaxies) and had a time where I thought we discovered Vanadium in a bunch of Keck quasar spectra stacked together. (it was just a false alarm, but we did see a bunch of weak iron lines...) Such a large FORTRAN code for no return.

This sounds much more like a real discovery! Great job! Have you gotten anymore time to work on it? And getting your foot in the door with Sloan data is a great thing!

Oh, and have fun at Astronomy Camp! I'll be working the 2nd Advanced Camp at the beginning of July, but I know most of the other counselors and well, Don's my advisor!

Oh and yes, IRAF is eeeeevil! (though I'm only doing image reduction now - haven't gotten to my spectra, though my fellow grad students mostly use IDL for that now)

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[Astronomy's] one of those things that makes us more than just well-fed cows. It satisfies a really deep hunger to know, to go someplace, to explore ...a hunger that is as basic to human beings as food and shelter... -Br. Guy Consolmagno, Ph.D.

I'll be there too! Not as a counselor, since despite my age (19) I had never heard of astronomy camp before this year. See you there.

where's this astronomy camp? There's one run at my university back home (i'm currently in one of those REU's in Georgia! GO IDL!... or fortran... or....ummm...geez, I'm using lots of random programs.)

University of Arizona.


http://www.astronomycamp.org/